


A Lesson on Fatherhood

by ruthlesslistener



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: (From the Pale King), (Wyrm biology shit), Baby Hornet fic, Bad Parenting, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Badass mother Herrah, Before anyone asks Hornet isn't void she's just stained with it, Drabble, Gen, He is reluctant for reasons of his own that make sense but is really just a whole load of bullshit, Herrah forces the Pale King to confront fatherhood, Hollow is technically here too but they don't show up so eh, Mentions of Infanticide, Not tagging them, Parenthood, Self-indulgent character building fic, She tries to, Well - Freeform, do you honestly think that this man has any ability to healthily express his emotions, or - Freeform, shoo shoo begone with that lore shit I control the canon now motherfuckers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlesslistener/pseuds/ruthlesslistener
Summary: Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt 4: Losing Their TemperFor once, Herrah is woken not by her hatchling's cry, but by their errant sire, waking her to tend to them. For a god who favors his distance, he's elected to stay the night with her- to guard the child, to ensure their contract has been properly fulfilled, she does not know.Though his instincts seem to pull him towards fatherhood, he still holds himself apart from them, insistent that his avoidance was chosen for their benefit. Tired of his distance, stressed from the night before, she cannot keep herself from telling him just how wrong he is. If it angers him, then so be it. But she will not let her newborn be shirked by their sire, not when so much of their future lies in his claws.For the sake of her child, she must ensure his compliance. It is the least that she can do for them, when all but their infancy is already stolen from her, taken by the pact that granted them life in the first place. She cannot let their father- her killer- abandon them on top of it all.
Relationships: Herrah the Beast & The Pale King (Hollow Knight)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531121
Comments: 24
Kudos: 103





	A Lesson on Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

> I have finals. I need to be studying. And what am I doing instead? Writing this, because I am stressed and when I am stressed my demon brain likes to yeet ideas at me like a disdainful crowd throwing tomatoes at a pitiful jester.
> 
> This is incredibly self-indulgent and a whole lot softer than the way I usually write the Pale King, but in my defense I wrote the most of this at like 3 am when I was having a crisis over what would happen if I somehow accidentally became a dad so *gestures vaguely* this was the result

It is the first night after her child’s hatching, and, for all intents and purposes, she should be sleeping soundly. She should be sinking deep into the clutches of her dreams in between the few restless moments her child’s cries have jolted her awake- for all that she will sleep later, she requires the rest now. The hatching had been strenuous enough, stressful enough, with the still dead eggs and the one live one, the shock of seeing the soft shell tear under void-dark claws that had no real right to be present inside an egg born from a mortal spider and a god whose carapace shone as white as freshly fallen snow. The fight that had followed had drained her further, her anger quelled only by the horror she had seen in the Pale King’s face. Her exhaustion crashing and blooming into relief, when, after a stressful moment of Midwife rubbing her baby’s back, they had unfurled their tiny fangs from their bright white face and wailed in indignation of being brought into a world of cold winds, bright lights, and fussing, so loud and so strong that it startled their sire into flaring his wings and backing away, a display of emotion she hadn’t seen since his last attempt to breed with her.

"Herrah."

The whisper of his voice sends ripples through her mind like a stone dropped into a still lake. She's awake in an instant, clawing out from the clinging web of sleep to squint against the glare of his light, and for a moment she fears that she will find him stained with the blood of her child, the stories written of a wyrm's treachery ringing in her head. She had forced him to help with the nesting process, ignoring his discomfort and repeated protests. She had thought she had tricked him into bonding sufficiently- had she failed? Had he promised her a healthy hatchling, only to destroy them when they were still vulnerable, when they were too weak to claim his throne?

But when her eyes adjust, she finds him in a position no different than the one she left him in, curled around the cradle with his robes clean and relatively neat, his fangs and claws unblooded. He's staring at her with eyes swirled with glowing pinpricks of light, two miniature cosmos that fade as he blinks. Tired as she is, it takes her a moment to realize that that's the main source of the Kingslight; he's dimmer than she's ever seen him, on par with the lumishrooms, only a faint, soft glow blurring his frame. It would almost be welcoming, if one didn't know better. "The child is hungry."

She's confused for a moment- no piercing cry woke her, or the whimper she's come to associate with her baby's waking. But then from the cradle comes the rustle of fabric, and a soft mewl; plaintive and lonely, and she hurries over to soothe them before it can turn into a shriek, her deep, rumbling croon quieting them to simple whimpers. The Pale King backs away from the cradle as she approaches, giving her a wide enough berth for sparks of indignation to begin to nettle at her, but it's quieted when she sees the keen edge to his gaze. Fixed upon her baby, he does not seem disgusted but...tense. Concerned, maybe? She can barely tell, with a mask like his, but there is an energy to him that she recalls seeing only when he spoke about curing the Infection, which she hopes indicates worry rather than territorial aggression. A desire to protect, not destroy.

Relieved by the knowledge that her forced bonding sessions seemed to have worked, she does not bother to hide the exhaustion in her voice as she bounces her fussy child in one arm and searches for a soft-shelled dirtcarver grub with another. Midwife was insistent that she feed only the gentlest of prey to her new hatchling, wary of the limitations that a hybrid may possess. The Pale King claimed that any kind of food should suffice, but there had been a lilt to his voice that indicated doubt, so she decided to be cautious."Thanks. You gave me a little more time to react."

"You hold no debt to me for this. I find myself insufficient to handle this situation, other than to provide an advance warning to the child's behavior." He pays her no mind as she moves her mask aside to bite into the dirtcarver, entirely focused on the little red bundle in her arms. Her baby squirms, mewling again in protest of their empty stomach, and his head tilts slowly to the side in response, studying them intently. "A single dirtcarver grub may be insufficient."

"They're barely any bigger than it, Wyrm, a single dirtcarver will be more than enough." The grub suitably melted, she passed her child up to her main set of arms and offered them its soft body, smiling as they enthusiastically gripped it with their tiny claws and sank in their little fangs. So tiny they were, but so perfect; she could not care less about the void-black carapace, or the death-white mask that made their face. Not as long as they were alive, breathing, and making soft, happy noises as they fed, the spark of life that their vessel sibling lacked shining bright in their every movement. "They're barely out of the egg, do you honestly believe they can handle anything bigger?"

He blinks at her again, clear lenses flickering over those piercing dark eyes. For a moment, she feels her world tip and spin around her; his shock, an alien feeling, blooming in her mind as if it crept into her thoughts to escape the razor-sharp edges of his thoughts. And then he blinks again, and it is gone, sequestered away into the dark, twisting hallways that make up his mind. "I again misunderstood the difference between our species. They are small right now, and weak. Were they a wyrm in a nest in a wastes, safe from the crush of their sibling's bodies, routine large feedings would have been warranted to ensure they survived to their first century."

This time, it is her own surprise that cuts her deep, though she masks it quick enough. To speak as if a century held the same significance as a week to a wyrm…she thinks she understands it a little better now, this near-hesitance he projects around her. The slow way he curls around the cradle, the intensity of his stare, the trailing behind a respectful distance as he follows her around. How old was he, really? Is this the first hatchling he has reared as his own? The first one he sired that was not given to the Abyss? She had suspected minimal parenting skills the moment she saw him attempt to nest the egg, but if the millennia to him were like seasons or cycles to her...he may be younger than she anticipated, more naive than she thought any god could be, and she jumps at the opportunity to drive the delicate bond between sire and child a little further. "Is that so? Would you like to hold them, then? Assure yourself that they are still alive and well? I'm telling you, Pale King, Midwife is an excellent caregiver. She has seen all manners of cases and she has pronounced our child to be a healthy babe, despite their eccentricities."

The baby cooed, as if on cue, and the Pale King's attention switched to them again, staring at them as they finished with their meal and waved the empty husk around in one chubby fist. For a moment, as she pretends to be distracted trying to wrestle it from their grip, she thinks she catches him leaning in towards her- and then he straightens, and something in his gaze turns cold and distant again as he switches back to looking at her. "There is no need. They do not want me."

The thin thread of her patience snapped, cut by her exhaustion and the lingering stress from the previous day. Venom bleeds into her voice before she could stop it, and when she sees the way he tenses in response to her tone, she’s not really sure she’d want to quell it anyways. "Really? They would not want their father? The one who's been hanging over their bed the entire night, watching them to ensure they are safe?" 

She thinks she sees him flinch at her words, but drives on anyways, her voice a furiously low whisper to keep the babe in her arms from fussing. Already they are beginning to fall back asleep, belly heavy with their meal, little chelicerae working on the edge of their blanket. "If I were to need to Dream tonight, if this Old Light of yours chose to ambush us right now, you would be all that they know. You, and your lady wife. They would not just want you then, Pale King, _you would be their world_. Do not pretend to know what your child wants when they are only a few hours out of the egg, and their only desires are to eat, sleep, and be loved by their parents."

For a moment, she thinks she has gotten through to him. She thinks she’s struck through to the heart of him, sparked some shame in that cold stone heart of his. But then the flicker in his eyes is gone and he once more closes himself off, tucks his wings tight against his back and tips his head up in a way she’s starting to recognize as the cues for his walls going up. 

"And if the Old Light attacked tonight, it would be my spell that stole you away from them, and left them to me, away from their home and their people. I would be your killer, and they would grow up knowing that the one parent they have left would be the cause of their mother's death." He stands rigid before her, tensed as if preparing for a blow- his voice has not risen in volume, but there is an intensity to it that rings in her head, takes on a life and an echo of its own. The baby in her arms squirms a bit, but settles again, innocent to the proceedings around them. "Do not mistake me for a father, Herrah. I am a sire at best, a king first and foremost. I do this for their own good.”

What a load of bullshit. She knows of his preference for distance, for pretending he was a statue instead of a living, breathing being, but this is just ridiculous. She snaps her fangs at him, letting him see her frustration clearly, and holds her baby closer to herself. As if she can protect them from their father's cruel machinations. As if she can protect them in the days that will come, when she is Dreaming and they are left to grow up in the ornate halls of the White Palace, beautiful in the distant, untouchable way that a home should never be. "They are the blood of your blood, no matter what they'd wish to call it. They are too young to know of what will transpire, and when they are old enough to learn of what is to come, we will teach them. By the stars, Pale King, they are only a few hours old! Let them have this comfort, at the very least!"

“The child would learn soon enough." His tail curls in tight around himself- she can see the way his robes shift, the only indication of his distress that he gives. A pathetic display, but a display nonetheless, betraying a depth of emotion he would not normally show. "They would learn, and the betrayal of what I have done to them would hurt far more than my absence from their life. If you care for their well-being, then you would not press me so."

His words are bitter, but his voice is a monotone drone, as if he were merely stating facts instead of excuses; as if he could, with enough repetitions, truly convince himself that he doesn't care. Were she not currently holding her newborn child, were she not hyperaware of how delicate they were, she would have strangled him then and there, or at the very least given him a good hard shake. "That doesn't sound like your typical trick of foresight, Wyrm. Unless you have found a way to pluck knowledge of people's feelings from the distant future, as I know you cannot."

His eyes flicker again to the bundle in her arms, and for a moment he leans in again, before he catches himself and pulls away. Perhaps he is tired, too- this is the most emotion she’s seen him show in a while. Softly, even quieter than before, he whispers, "I do not need to use my foresight to know that they will hate me, as they should. It is simply the way of things, Herrah of Deepnest. A small price to pay for the safety of our people. Hear me now, and let this useless endeavor come to an end. They do not want me."

There is something in his words this time that feels like a weakness. A shift to his tone, a slight twitch in his wings. Were this any other argument they were having, she would have let it drop, to be picked up and used against him later. But now, in the lonely hours of the morning, with her child's future happiness at stake, she pounces on it as fast as she can before it slips away. "But you want them."

He goes utterly still. Just for a moment. Just for a breath. But it's enough, and his hesitance keeps him in place long enough for her to cross the space between them and place her baby gently into his arms. He takes them, with a jolting, mechanical movement, but his instincts betray him before he could give them back to her, his extra hands shooting up to support them, head turning to watch them as they snuffle and snuggle into his shoulder. The surprise and fear flashing through his eyes would be near comical, if he were anyone else. But the hands that hold her baby are stained dark with void, his claws blending into their soft carapace. The mark of his deeds, permanently etched into his being, now passed onto her child; a brand of his blood, etched into their soft skin.

"A child does not need a father to be happy. But knowing that they have one, knowing of their absence, knowing they are reachable and choose to be distant for no reason they can decipher- that is a painful thing to bring to a child, Pale King. A cruel act, one that reaps no rewards. If you have any empathy at all, any sympathy locked away somewhere in that cold heart of yours, then you would take them, and you would love them. Not from a distance, but wholeheartedly, as close as you can be to them before they push you away, because you are their parent, too. Even if they grow to resent you eventually, it is still your duty to ensure that they grow up knowing that they are loved." She leaned back, feeling strangely ancient despite being the mortal in this situation, and watched him quietly for a moment. For all his fuss and avoidance before, he seemed to be doing well enough with them now- they were secure in his grip, their little hands kneading at his robes, and he was letting them. The King of Hallownest, famed for his reclusive nature and his avoidant behavior, was letting his infant paw at his robes and snuggle into his chest, when he had hissed at her before for daring to do the same. 

Did he love them? Or was instinct ruling him, telling him to hold his baby close lest they fuss and scream again?

 _Could_ he love them? Could he care for them, when she was gone? Or would he hide himself away again, become a figurehead instead of a father? A concept of a parent, heard of but never seen? Would the Lady loved them, as she promised she would when they were just a concept thrown onto a bargaining table, and she had given them her blessing to proceed? Would it be enough? Could it be enough?

Already, she itched to take them back into her arms, where she knew for certain that they would be safe and loved. But she forced her anxiety down, folded her arms so he could not see how badly she wished to hold them again. 

Softly, he whispered: “I do not wish for them to know that someone who loved them could hurt them so. I will be your killer, Herrah. I have already damned the Vessel to its fate. Do not let me hurt them, too.” 

She shook her head, tired of their argument. The night was too long and too rife with interruptions for this- though she would spend her last days sleeping, that would not save her from her exhaustion now. “Take your mind out of the future, Pale King, and focus on the present. Do they look hurt to you? Do they hate you now, are they in pain just from touching you?” 

She did not miss the alarmed flick to his tail, or the way that he awkwardly twisted his head to look at them, checking them for faults he knew were not there. “That is beyond the point. I am thinking of the long term goals here, Herrah-”

“No,” she stated, cutting him off before he could start. “They are not. They are not hurt, they are not cursed because you are holding them, and do not speak to me of long term goals when the both of us know that I am doing this for their benefit, not yours.” Tired, she shifted her mask aside to rub at her eyes, caring little for the fact that he saw her bare face. The proof of their union lay in his arms; she had nothing to hide from him but her vulnerabilities, and her weariness with him wasn’t a weakness he could exploit. Not when she had him so thoroughly cornered, dragged into her family line and her affairs whether he liked it or not. “I know what it is like to lose a parent, Pale King. I did not crawl from the dirt, anymore than you did; I have ruled my clan more intimately than you oversee your kingdom, for as their Queen and Matriarch I am as a mother to them. I have seen the torn families, the abuse cases, the children orphaned in hunting losses. I have dealt love and death in equal kinds to people who have grown up with no family to love them, who tried to compensate by killing themselves or killing others. Heed my words now, Pale King, as a ruler and an equal; the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”

She adjusted the lay of her mask, and watched him again. Caught in introspection, he does not notice her staring at him; his eyes are closed, piercing gaze veiled behind pale lids, wings flicking out on every heavy breath. If she did not think him incapable of it, if she did not know how distant he strove to hold himself, she would think him on the verge of tears.

The debate now over, she sighed and walked by him, just barely close enough to hear his breath coming out as a whisper. A prayer of sorts, a statement, something meant for the child in his arms only. “Enough of this. Come back to bed- if they wake up cranky, I expect you to be the one to soothe them.” 

She made good on her word, crawling into her bed to rest, but a moment before she fell asleep, she thought she heard the Pale King's voice raise into a soft croon of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> The 'burn down the village' proverb isn't mine; I just wanted to include it because it felt like it fit, and because it's popular enough that I didn't want to paraphrase it and steal it. 
> 
> If it's not already apparent, the reason why Herrah needs to inject venom into Hornet's food is because her little newborn baby fangs don't hold nearly enough venom to melt it herself. She is little. She is tiny. She needs mother to melt things for her because she is simply too small to feed herself. I would die for her.


End file.
